Musings on World events from the perspective of a Social and an Economic Liberal.

Thursday, May 06, 2010

Early Morning

Arisen early in order to deliver Good Morning leaflets across the constituency. With a possible pause for a famed Lib Dem Bacon Roll around 11 (and a snooze in the late afternoon) I guess it will be solid all the way through until the count tonight.

I will be in the Aberdeen Conference Centre, which is also in the constituency, acting as a polling agent. So I hope to see, not merely the re-election of Malcolm Bruce and Sir Robert Smith, but also the election of many new Liberal Democrat MPs too.

It has been a long campaign- after all it really began when Gordon Brown became Prime Minister- Yet this may prove to be not the culmination of such a long period, but the beginning of a new era of British politics.

The Russians have an expression: "we hoped for the best, but it turned out like always". For the Liberal Democrats and the Liberals before that has been the story of successive elections. This time the campaign has been different: the success of Nick Clegg has done more than raise morale: it has reminded all the voters that they can- if they choose- make a profound difference.

I don't know the result, no one does, but I think that the Liberal Democrats are on course for the best election result for the Liberal interest in over 100 years. We should be proud of our campaign, proud of our principles, proud of our leaders.

Now, on polling day itself, we must play the mechanics of the electoral process: leaflets, knock-ups and the rest of it. I wish an enjoyable day to all participants, and the best of success to my Liberal Democrat colleagues.

2 comments:

HTea
said...

I agree that this will be a historic election for the Lib Dems and Nick Clegg deserves all our thanks for that. It is interesting to see what themes the media emphasised in the final days of the election campaign. One of them is seemingly about generations of voters and candidates. I think his popularity has a lot to do with his age and possibly generation. I quite liked this piece in the Independent the other day. (http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/jonathan-pontell-cleggs-rise-is-the-sound-of-generation-jones-clearing-its-throat-1961191.html) which addresses the leaders’ generations. The main point is that Clegg and Cameron are both part of the emerging generation between the Boomers and Xers: Generation Jones.When you research Generation Jones, which I just did, you find that this concept/term has gained much traction in several countries. It looks like it is a regular part of national discussions, with widespread acceptance by experts and media. While it has gotten some media interest here, it hasn’t gotten nearly as much in this country. That’s unfortunate. This is the generation which will be running the show for the foreseeable future, and we Brits need to get a grasp of who Jonesers are and what makes them tick. I think one helpful starting point in this process is looking at this pretty good overview here: http://www.generationjones.org.uk/ . And then, I’d recommend doing a bit more research to fill in some of the detail. I believe this will be an increasingly discussed topic, and it makes sense to get in ahead of the curve.

Well.. not such a good day for the Liberal Democrats after all. Aside from Clegg having a roll as king maker, but that's more through the Tories not quite being successful enough than a LD breakthrough.

If only the Liberal Democrats would ditch the social democratic wing and they would be a party worth voting for.

I'm a staunch liberal but I'll never be a Liberal without reform. Viva the orange book brigade.